


Tinkering

by Writerleft



Series: Comes Marching Home [49]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Domestic, F/F, Fluff, Korrasami - Freeform, Korrasami Month 2019, Tinkering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 17:02:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19024177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writerleft/pseuds/Writerleft
Summary: Asami Sato, engineer extraordinaire, can build anything in the world--but for once, Korra's the one putting something together!Will Korra's pride make her task harder than it needs to be?Can Asami handle sitting on the sidelines, while someone else flounders in her field of expertise?Will you readers be able to decide?





	1. Building the Base

“Good grief, what is that?” Asami asked, peeking into the hallway as Korra lugged the crate through the door.

“It’s… for… exercise,” Korra grunted, settling it on the living room rug long enough to wipe her brow and catch her breath. “Mako remembered me complaining about not being able to exercise when the weather’s bad, and he mail-ordered this for me.”

“Well, isn’t that sweet of him,” Asami said, giving her sweaty wife an appreciative look. “I’ll have to make sure to buy his wife something fancy and expensive, just to even the score.”

“What, are you worried about competition?” Korra sauntered over, resting her wrists on Asami’s shoulders.

Asami shook her head. “I’m pretty confident I can give you better exercise than any machine Mako can find.”

Korra snorted, and kissed her. “Damned straight. All the same, I’d like to get this thing built and give it a try.”

“You mean lugging it up to the apartment wasn’t exercise enough?” She tilted her head, looking at the box over Korra’s shoulder. “Please tell me you took the elevator with that.”

“If I tell you I now have a personal grudge against each of the 260 steps to get up here, does that answer your question?”

Asami groaned. “Korra, there’s self-reliance, and then there’s stubbornness.”

Korra shrugged, flexing her back and ducking into the kitchen for some water. “You didn’t want stubborn, you shouldn’t have married an earthbender.”

She didn’t need to look at Asami to know her eyebrow was arched. “Since when is that the element you most identify with?”

“I’m the Avatar. I can use whatever element is most helpful to win an argument. Us waterbenders are flexible that way.”

Asami rolled her eyes. “Well, miss stubborn-yet-flexible, where do you think this piece of equipment is going to live?

“I figured, along the wall in my office? It’ll be a little cramped, but I don’t need much room at my writing desk, after all.”

“It’s going to take up that much space? What sort of exercise machine is it?”

“Rowing. Has these tracks that a platform glides on, supposed to exercise damned near everything at once.”

“I see… well, so long as you leave room for a spectator…”

“Why, Asami… if I didn’t know better, I’d say you have a little firebender in you.”

“Well, given that you’re a firebender too, that sounds like a lovely evening.” Asami winked, then squeezed past her—a little closer than was strictly necessary—on the way to the kitchen. “I was about to put some tea on, would you like a cup?”

“Please,” Korra said, watching her go. Then she shook herself, rubbed her hands together, and hoisted the crate one last time to get it into her office. Once there, a little metalbending at the nails to cheat the box open, and… yep, that was a crate full of parts.

Korra set the lid aside, pulling the assembly instructions out, but not really seeing them. She _had_ gotten quite the workout getting this thing upstairs—her back and knees were honestly pretty sore—but more importantly, far more pressingly, the vision of Asami as she’d walked past was still fresh in her mind…

She let the instructions fall back into the box, and went to the kitchen to grab a quick… snack.

 

\---

 

Asami walked past the door to Korra’s office, then took a step back to look in. “Finally putting that thing together?”

Korra frowned at the pile of bolts and nuts on the floor beside her—why would they come unlabeled? “Well, I would’ve the other day if you hadn’t distracted me.”

“Yes, I do recall how that was entirely my fault. Want some help?”

Korra shook her head. “I got it,” she said, absentmindedly, as she picked one up. Was that a 28, an 30, or a 32?

Asami lingered in the doorway a long moment as Korra picked up another bolt for comparison. Asami could put this together blindfolded, she was sure, but this was _her_ rowing machine, _she_ was the one who had been sore for two days after lugging it up 260 steps, so _she_ was damned well going to be the one to show it who’s boss. And these two bolts were _definitely_ slightly different lengths.

The smart thing to do would be to sort them. Maybe that would make it clear what was what? She could make little labeled piles…

“Here,” Asami said from the door, a screwdriver and adjustable wrench in her hand. “Figured you’d need these.”

Korra blinked for a moment as her brain switched from sorting to conversation. “Um, sure. Probably right. Not there quite yet… wanna just put those on my desk, there?” She pointed.

Asami did so, but continued standing behind her. Korra paid her no mind—she’d certainly stopped to stare at Asami enough in her own time. Now, why were there two kinds of washers, and should they be in the same pile? They were _nearly_ the same size, why would—

“I find it easier to sort parts into little bowls or boxes,” Asami said.

“Okay.” It wasn’t just a difference in how they were made, the parts list did show two sizes of washer. Just seemed odd.

Asami left the room as Korra contemplated, only to return a minute later. “Here you go.”

Korra didn’t look up. “Hmm?”

“It’s a tray, for sorting.”

“I’m almost done sorting, I don’t need a tray.”

“It helps keep parts separated as you work.”

“There really aren’t that many parts. I think I have it handled.”

“I’ll just leave it here with the tools,” she said, setting it on the desk.

“Okay.” Korra finished sorting, then looked at the instructions for the first parts to go together. Looked like it was going to be the base for the frame—starting at the bottom made sense. These two legs here… these two struts there so they matched… where was that joiner piece?

“Did you want me to hold those for you?”

“Nah, I got it,” Korra said, perhaps a little louder than she intended as she held them both loosely together with one hand, freeing the other to fish for the part she wanted. “Asami, I promise, if I need your help, I’ll come get you, okay?”

Asami sighed. “Okay, sure. I’ll just be in my office, or the kitchen.”

“Sounds good.”

Korra spent the next few minutes, moving through the instructions one step at a time. She’d had to back up and undo some bolts when she realized she’d used 32s instead of 30s—turned out that extra little sliver of length was critical somewhere else—but it’s not like she was in a hurry. Besides, it was slowly coming togeth—

“If you leave all the connections loose at first, it makes correcting mistakes easier,” Asami said from the door. “Plus, it makes it easier to make adjustments if everything isn’t super tight.”

“Asami.”

“You do have a tendency to overtighten things.”

“ _Asami_.”

“Did you want some tea?”

Korra took a deep breath. Honestly, a little calming tea would be good right now, but she wasn’t really in the mood to accept it. “Maybe once I’m done?”

Asami smiled, and went back to the kitchen.

[...click here if you think ASAMI should mind her own business](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19024177/chapters/45180994)

[...click here if you think KORRA should accept help](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19024177/chapters/45181024)


	2. if ASAMI is a busybody...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asami can't help herself.

 

Korra stared at the empty doorway for a long moment, then got back to work. She wasn’t as good at jumping between one task and another like Asami, and it took her a second to get back into gear. What had she been doing… right, she had to switch some bolts around, since the instructions hadn’t been clear. A little annoying, but no big deal, and quickly fixed.

From there, it was time to move on to the sliding seat, which—

“You know, I was thinking about this,” Asami said from the doorway, “and I realized that rigging the pulley system together might be easier if you had some clamps to hold the coil in place—”

Asami meant well—Korra knew she did—but every time she butted in completely threw her off. Hadn’t she made it clear enough she wanted to do this?

“Asami, I love you, and I know you want to help, but I’m just asking you to let me build this myself.”

“Oh, I am!” Asami said. “It’s just that I had a few ideas that might make that easier for you. Like I said, those clamps—”

“Do we have any axle grease?” Korra interrupted, pretty sure she’d heard that term before.

Asami blinked. “Um, not here, but I’ve got some in my shop. Does it call for some?”

“That does help things run more smoothly,” Korra said, strategically non-answering.”

“Hmm… odd, that the kit wouldn’t come with any lubricant of its own… I’ll run by the workshop real quick, if you like, and grab you some. Just be thirty minutes or so.”

Korra nodded. “That’ll work great,” she said.

As Asami stepped out of the apartment, Korra was split between the satisfaction of having outmaneuvered her for once, and a little bit of guilt for being so tricky.

 Asami was curious, and she _loved_ building things. Truth be told, most of the time she’d have been the one putting this together, in no time flat. But Korra was a fixer too—she enjoyed that gentle rush of accomplishment for having put something together, for being able to look at the fruits of her work and known that she’d _done that_. Was that so much to ask?

With twenty uninterrupted minutes, Korra got the machine working perfectly—the seat ran smooth, the weight and tension adjustments were perfect, and all the packing material was tossed back into the box. She stood, beholding it. She may not be an engineer, but she got the job done!

Now… the question was, what to do about Asami? She _could_ just put some lube on the machine somewhere to maintain the ruse…

Korra shook her head. Their marriage wasn’t built on that sort of thing.

There was only one thing for it, Korra resolved, as Asami came back through the door. She rose, meeting Asami in the hallway.

“Hey,” Asami said, waving a paper bag at her. “I didn’t know grade of grease you wanted, so I—”

“I didn’t need the grease.”

Asami blinked. “What.”

“I didn’t actually need grease. I just picked something we didn’t have here.”

“You… you sent me on a fake errand!?”

“I’m sorry, but I did, and that might seem mean—but I’d literally _asked_ you, straight up, to let me finish building it myself, and you ignored that. Was that fair of you?”

Asami’s mouth gobbed open and shut a bit. She glared. She pointed at Korra’s chest. She flared out her nose. Then, finally, she crossed her arms, and frowned. “I was just trying to help,” she insisted.

Once Asami had had the argument with herself, Korra knew she was safe. “I know… but when you kept trying to help me all the time, that was making me feel like you thought I couldn’t do it.”

“Couldn’t… Korra, you can do _anything_. I just… shit, you’re right. I wanted to take it over.”

“You _do_ like your puzzles,” Korra said, touching Asami’s arm.

“And _you_ like proving yourself,” Asami sighed. “Sorry. I should’ve listened.”

“I’ll forgive if you will,” Korra said, pecking her on the cheek. Then, she took Asami’s hand. “Now, come on! This thing is pretty awesome, let me show you how it works!”

 


	3. if KORRA is stubborn...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Korra can't help herself

Korra stared at the empty doorway for a long moment, suspicious of it, before returning to her task. The frame came together, then the tracks. The pully system was a bit tricky to get sorted, especially since the cable kept wanting to flop around and scatter bolts and screws everywhere—maybe that sorting tray would’ve been a good idea—but eventually, she got that sorted, too.

The frame was solid as a rock—if maybe a bit wobbly. The feet weren’t quite in alignment, but a corner she’d broken off the box fit perfectly under the one that was off-kilter. The foot stand still needed adjusting as did a few other odds and ends, but it looked together enough!

At least, until she set the sliding seat on the tracks and tested it for the first time.

 _SCREEEE!_ It certainly offered plenty of resistance, but that deafening wail definitely couldn’t have been what was intended. Much less, the sudden jerk to a stop halfway through the glide.

“You okay?” Asami called from the kitchen.

“ABSOLUTELY FINE!” Korra shouted back, hopping off. The seat was noticeably diagonal on the track, and when Korra tried to fix it, or even take it off, it wouldn’t budge. She took firmer hold of the seat, took a breath, and twisted it hard, only to send the body of the machine crashing against the wall, making an even bigger racket.

Korra growled, then took a deep breath. Stay calm, Korra, getting mad at it will only scuff the wall worse.

Instead, she calmly stood, and calmly made her way to the kitchen where she calmly crouched beside the utility cabinet to calmly grab the toolbox so she could calmly bash the rowing machine into submission.

Asami sipped her tea calmly, reading a newspaper on the counter as Korra rummaged. “I’ve still got enough tea for two, if you’d like some.”

“I’m fine!”

“It’s one of your favorites.”

“Don’t need tea.”

“Maybe you could use a break, though.”

“That would mean the machine won!”

Asami sipped her drink, still not having looked up from her paper. “Okay,” she said.

Korra had been ready to—calmly—defend how irritated she was with this project, how close she was to literally hammering it together. But Asami’s actually-calm refusal to even offer criticism… forced Korra to do it herself.

She sighed, and stood, and poured hereself a damned cup of tea. Holding it up to let it cool forced her to cool off as well.

What did it matter, if Asami helped her? Or if she didn’t put it together 100% her way, by herself. Nobody but the two of them would ever know. So why was she being so stubborn about it?

Why had she brought it up the stairs, instead of the elevator?

She blew across the surface of her tea, leaning against the counter. She was being ridiculous. Proud, in an obstinate way. Asami could’ve pointed that out, could’ve made a big deal out of it—but making Korra recognize her own pride was far more effective.

There was no shame in accepting advice, in seeking out assistance. She’d spent her whole youth learning the dangers of going it alone, of putting all the pressure on herself so as not to share the burden. If this ridiculous episode was all it took to remind her of that lesson… small price to pay, really.

“If you’re not busy,” Korra asked, “I could use your help for a minute. Troubleshooting.”

Asami smiled, graceful enough to take the change of heart in stride. “I’d love to,” she said, taking Korra’s hand. “Anything you need.”


End file.
